Warner Bros. seemed to have a sure-fire hit on their hands with the star-studded crime saga Gangster Squad before their marketing campaign ran into trouble following the tragic Aurora shootings in July. The first trailer highlighted a violent shootout in a movie theatre which reportedly took place at the film’s end, so Warner’s pulled the trailer and pushed back the film’s release from September to January, eventually deciding to also reshoot the ending. Things have been relatively quiet for Ruben Fleischer’s (Zombieland) film since, until a (rather uninspiring) new poster emerged yesterday and now a second trailer today. While it seemed like Josh Brolin’s show last time around, this new trailer favours co-lead Ryan Gosling and his romance with Crazy, Stupid, Love co-star Emma Stone — although there is still plenty of time devoted to Sean Penn’s legendary gangster Mickey Cohen, who Brolin, Gosling and their team (Michael Pena, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick and Giovanni Ribisi, with Nick Nolte as their commanding officer) are waging war against in post-WWII L.A. This trailer is less assured that the first, seemingly shooting for a revisionist blockbuster version of The Untouchables — with an odd Michael Mann-meets-Zack Snyder visual style — and I’m more than a little worried about the unnecessarily re-shot ending. But Gangster Squad does still have a fascinating true story and terrific cast in its favour, so let’s hope it works better than this latest marketing suggests.

Gangster Squad is now due January 11, 2013 in the US and January 17 in New Zealand. Check out the new trailer and poster below (via The Playlist).